A fun and interesting enough game that's unfortunately a bit of a mess both story-wise and gameplay-wise. Story starts off with some intrigue with the academy setting of awkward teens having to commit war-crimes but just kind of goes off the deep end in the third act where a bunch of crap's kind of thrown at the wall to see what sticks. Combat's still fun, if a little more tedious than in prior Final Fantasies thanks to some needless overcomplications with the Junction and Draw mechanics. Still enjoyed my time with it, especially in no small part due to the excellent music and Squall being one of the most interesting main protagonists that Final Fantasy has come up with (even if the rest of the cast can be somewhat lacking). Triple Triad's pretty fun!

I'm finally going to get around to doing a, hopefully, quick marathon of the Pikmin games up to 4. I've honestly only played 3 before, so I'm curious to try out the older ones now. This one's a nice little package that can still be a little difficult with the time limit and the Pikmin's wonky AI (luckily got all ship parts in 22 days, even with two or three days spent going back to the Impact Site to restock my Pikmin numbers). I quite enjoyed its air of mystery and how it only tells you about the world through Olimar's eyes. He has a more interesting perspective than I thought with him being portrayed as curious and stubborn and gullible, when my only other experiences with him are in Pikmin 3 (where he is barely in it) and Smash Bros. (which doesn't show off much of his personality except that he's good at leading Pikmin)